Wargate
by elspeth20
Summary: This short story continuation of the Trials of Light and Darkness Saga occurs between arcs six and seven of the epic, right after the events of Words of the Protector! Elsa and Hans try to bring Corona into the Unified Empire while Odette works to unlock the arcane mysteries of wargates and Anna learns to fulfill the role of empress. Probably doesn't stand alone, but you can try :)
1. Chapter 1

Wargate

A Trials of Light and Darkness Story

* * *

Chapter One

 _How do we build an empire from these ashes?_

 _Odette Marie Novare_

* * *

Sadden's Manor

Arendelle

November 2nd, 1843

Three weeks had passed since the beginning of the invasion. Three weeks had passed since four thousand Arendanes had died heroic martyrs, protecting their home from the grasp of darkness. Kristoff Bjorgmann had been among them. Three weeks had passed since Anna Siguror had been named empress of the new, Unified Empire. She'd gone from married princess to widowed empress in a matter of days.

Of course, there wasn't really anything _unified_ about the empire yet, Odette mused to herself as she leaned back in her plush leather chair, opening a dust-bound leather tome in her lap and trying to remember whether she'd looked at this one before. Though Elsa and Anna intended to eventually unite the forces of the world under one banner against the forces of darkness, right now only a broken Arendelle comprised the entirety of the Unified Empire.

 _Although,_ Odette thought, glancing up at the calendar pinned to the wall of the late Namar Sadden's private study, _today that might change._

Elsa and Hans were away in Corona, securing the fealty of Queen Arianna. They didn't expect to encounter much difficulty persuading Corona to join their cause; after all, the little German nation was already well aware of the danger their enemy posed. Queen Arianna had lost her husband Frederick to Everdark's domination almost one year ago. But traveling to Corona and back would still cost Arendelle's most powerful warriors a bit over two weeks of time.

Time during which Elsa had entrusted Odette to help unlock the secret of wargates.

Odette didn't know much about warfare that she hadn't learned from books, but one thing that all the scholars agreed upon was that winning a war took a lot more than just having a superior army. Just as important, it seemed, were surprisingly mundane things, like keeping your forces well-fed, and well-equipped. Historically, the more mobile of the two forces was usually at a substantial advantage, as well.

All of these posed logistical issues for the Unified Empire. The more nations that they welcomed into the fold, the more likely the empire was to become fractured – comprised of many, non-contiguous states, each many days' travel away from each other. Such an empire would be nearly impossible to defend. Each of the magnet states would have to maintain its own army to be able to fend off attacks while it waited for reinforcement from the other nations. Of course, by then, why bother uniting as an empire in the first place?

Wargates were the answer to their problems. Stationary magical portals that could transport someone from Arendelle to Corona in a heartbeat instead of two weeks. If the empire had a wargate in every one of its cities, it would be able to relay information, transfer supplies, and deploy forces anywhere, at any time. The only issue was, nobody knew how to create one.

Most of the world's knowledge of magic had been lost since the dark ages, during which spellcasters were regarded with suspicion and hostility, and hunted to near-extinction. Books that had once contained these secrets had long since been burned or lost, and so Elsa, Odette and the others were mostly left trying to piece together how to use their abilities on their own.

Odette set aside the book that she'd been paging through – it was an old, illuminated collection of parables that she'd been able to recover from the burned Saint Adelaide Cathedral, and pinched at the top of her nose. She hadn't been sleeping much recently, and it was starting to catch up to her. One of the first wizards that she and Elsa had ever met was a venerable German monk named Wulfric Shaw – he'd been the one to first teach them about Everdark, shortly before the dark god's return.

So, in a bout of wishful thinking, she'd hoped that she'd find some clues about magic in old books collected from Middle Age monasteries. Of course, there was nothing. She was wasting her time reading patronizing children's tales.

A knock at the study's door.

"Come in," she said, closing the book and raking a hand through her hair. She winced as she hit a snarl. It was wavy by nature, and she hadn't been brushing it much. What happened to the days when she always just put it in a bun?

The door opened, and Anna stepped inside.

"Hey, Anna," Odette said, waving halfheartedly. "I hope that you've had a more productive day than I have."

The young empress sat down on the other side of the table and sighed, sinking into the plush chair.

"Well, they had me inspecting the forces this morning. I don't know what on earth I was supposed to be looking for. But Vander says that it's mostly just to let them see me. It's supposed to be good for morale, I suppose. How are your studies going?"  
Anna had recovered from her grief remarkably quickly. Not because she didn't miss Kristoff, Odette knew, but because Anna was incredibly strong. The young empress knew that grief was a luxury that they could not afford, right now. So she weathered onwards.

"They're not," Odette replied. "I don't want to sound fatalistic, but I'm not sure that I'd be able to find the information we need, no matter how long I spend looking. I mean, if Everdark's people don't even know the original ritual, then what hope do we have?"

The forces of darkness knew how to create wargates, but they did not use the original ritual. Their method involved the use of a wizard's soul, so it required a sacrifice to bind the magics together. It was an incredibly costly way to expedite the transport of one's forces, and it was a price the Unified Empire could not afford to pay.

Anna just shook her head. "We're just kids. I mean, you're a year older than Elsa, and even you're only twenty-seven. How did we end up in charge of everything?"

Odette never _felt_ older than Elsa. Elsa always seemed in control of situations far larger than herself; she always seemed to know the right thing to do.

"Everyone else died," Odette said, only joking halfway.

Anna spun the volume of parables around to herself. It was large and square, with big, illustrated pages. The kind that you read to a kid sitting on your lap.

"Hey!" She said, a surprised smile jumping to life on her face. She opened the cover and flipped through the first few pages. "We used to have a copy of this in the palace, I think! Mom used to read me these before bed when I was younger! Did you get to _Arvid and the Gwyllions?_ That one actually used to creep me out a bit."

"I don't think so," Odette said, biting at her lower lip. "I stopped during the one where the talking heron told the little girl that unless she started behaving, trolls are going to show up in the night and eat her."

Anna laughed. "Oh yeah. I think that's meant to be a metaphor, mostly. But it got me to behave, I guess."

She flipped through to the page where _Arvid and the Gwyllions_ began. "Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of these stories are pretty macabre. This one is about a little boy, Arvid, whose parents live way out on this isolated part of the heath in England. He's not very happy. He always feels like he's alone, and he has no friends. One day, he's out on the moor, playing all alone, when the gwyllions come to him."

"What are gwyllions?" Odette asked.

"The story doesn't really say," Anna said. She turned the book back to face Odette. "But here's the way that they're drawn."

Odette looked at the picture. It depicted a very English moor, gray and drab and scrubby, stretching out across the entire page in soft watercolor. A young boy cowered in the center of the field, surrounded by three strange, spirit-like creatures. They were tall and spindly, and completely black, really just energetic slashes of the paintbrush. They trailed a wispy, gray mist beyond their limbs, implying a ghoulish dance around the terrified boy. Odette felt a strange tingling on the back of her neck.

"What do they do to him?" She asked.

Anna turned the page to show a new picture, one in which Arvid was tumbling into a void, still surrounded by the horrid creatures. "They took him to their land," she said softly. "They said that he was different from the other humans, and that he didn't fit in among them. He'd be more comfortable with the gwyllions."

She turned the page again, and Odette saw that now, Arvid was in a new place, a dark place, with hints of blues and purples forming the impression of a cavern around the figures.

"So he lives with them for some time," Anna said. "He feels welcome among them. They treat him like an equal, and he likes that. He's happy, for a little while."

The next few pages were considerably brighter. We find that there are torches in the caverns, and actually, the caverns are rather accommodating for humans. Arvid's family was quite poor, but here he gets a whole room to himself and he can eat things he likes every day. He doesn't know where the gwyllions get all the hams, and the turkeys, and apples and stuffing from, but it doesn't matter to him.

"But Arvid doesn't know what the gwyllions really do. They leave him alone for hours at a time, sometimes days. He asks them what they're doing when they're away, but they dodge the question."

The next picture showed little Arvid poking around the empty caverns, trying to find clues as to where the specters went.

"And he starts to get lonely," Anna said. "He starts to realize that he didn't really want to leave his mom and dad forever. So the next time the gwyllions come back, he asks them if he can see them."

The next page showed the haunting specters deep in conversation with each other. "The gwyllions have an argument about whether they should let Arvid see his parents. Some of them say that it isn't safe for Arvid in the overland anymore. But eventually they decide yes, they can let him see."

Anna's voice had grown soft, almost making Odette strain to hear her.

"So they take him with them the next time, to the overland." A painting of little Arvid, flying with the gwyllions, looking down on his parent's hovel from far above. It was a lonely little dot on the moors. "But what he sees, he can't believe."

The next page showed Arvid peering through the windows of the hovel, surrounded by dark specters. Inside, his parents looked joyous. Their faces are great big, twisted smiles.

"He sees them celebrating. They say that ever since Arvid left, their lives have been so much happier. Arvid starts to cry. The gwyllions tell him 'see, we tried to protect you from this, we tried to make it so you wouldn't see. They don't want you anymore.'"

"That's terrible," Odette whispered, looking at Arvid, sobbing into the ethereal forms of the creatures. "So does he stay with them?"

"Well," Anna said, "for a while he does, yes. He doesn't go above ground anymore, he just stays in the gwyllions' cavern and tries to enjoy himself. But after a while, he starts to convince himself that something's wrong. He didn't think that his parents could possibly be _happy_ that he was gone. So he ends up deciding that he's going to sneak out of the cavern by himself while the gwyllions were gone one day, and go see his parents again, for himself."

A few pages in the book documented this with a series of images, finally showing Arvid shouldering a little knapsack and trekking through the caverns.

"So he does. He walks and walks for a long time, and he finally finds the entrance. When he's out on the moors, he doesn't know where to go. He doesn't know which way his family's house is. So he just starts wandering, and before long he hears a dog barking. He runs over a few hills and he finds a group of people, searching, calling his name.

"He runs down to them, and his parents are there, and they start crying tears of joy. His parents and everyone from the closest village had been looking for him for a whole month, they said. They wanted to know where he'd been for so long, and they were so grateful that he was back, and he was safe!"

Arvid was embraced by his parents on the page, with a big, friendly dog bounding around them.

"But Arvid was confused. He said to his parents, 'if you're so happy to see me know, why would you celebrate that I was gone?' His parents have no idea what he's talking about. 'Arvid, they say, we've been worried sick about you! Not a day went by when we didn't pray for you to come back safely!'"

Odette noticed, for the first time, that one of the gwyllions was visible at the edge of the painting, a wisp of shadow peering over a nearby hill.

"Arvid starts to realize that somehow, the gwyllions tricked him. They showed him something that just wasn't real. And he's afraid."

The next image showed Arvid, tucked into bed in his home again, not asleep. He stared towards the ceiling, not looking over at the window, which was filled with gwyllions, peering inside. Watching him.

"For days," Anna said, "he did his best to hide from them. But they were always there. Watching him. Finally, one day when he was out on the moors again, they arrived. Determined not to be frightened by them, he asked them why they deceived him. He tells them that he hates them. That he wants them to go away. And to his surprise, they don't try to hurt him. They're disappointed."

Anna's voice had grown introspective. She turned the last page in the book and revealed the gwyllions, walking away from Arvid.

"They didn't reply. They just told him that they thought he was going to be someone that he didn't turn out to be, and then they walked away. Not dancing anymore. Arvid never saw the gwyllions again."

Anna closed the old book of parables, and then placed her hand against the back cover. They were both quiet for a few moments.

"What's the point?" Odette asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Old fairy tales always have some sort of lesson that they're trying to teach," Odette said. "But… I can't see a lesson in that."

"I'm not sure," Anna replied. "Maybe it's trying to teach children not to jump to conclusions. Maybe it's trying to tell them not to run away. Maybe it doesn't really have any point at all."

Odette didn't want to admit it, but the parable had bothered her, a bit. It was creepy and inexplicable. She felt silly.

"Anyway, it's pretty clear that there aren't any secret lessons about magic hidden in there," Odette said. She glanced over at the clock on the wall. "Have you eaten yet? I was just about to go find myself something."

Anna stood up and smiled. "Montaigne and I were going to eat together. Why don't you come join us? It'll take your mind off work for a little while."

Odette accepted the offer, grateful to leave the study behind.

xxx

"It's terribly rude, making us wait," Hans said, grinning as he leaned back in his chair, weaving his hands together behind his head.

He and Elsa sat at a gigantic conference table in Corona's palace, waiting for the arrival of the queen. They were alone, save for two guards flanking the doors at each end of the chamber. Elsa didn't remember them ever having such a substantial guard force indoors before, but she imagined that security was probably stepped up after the tragedy with King Frederick last winter.

"She's probably just busy," Elsa said, trying not to let worry edge into her voice. When they'd arrived at the city, it had been clear that Corona had so far not been a target of the invasion. The city looked much as it ever had – a stark contrast to Arendelle, which lay mostly in burned-out ruins. But what if Everdark _had_ come for Corona? What if, instead of an army, the God of Darkness had sent a small but lethal team of wizards? Would they be able to tell?

Hans cast a sidelong glance at Elsa. "They're alright," he said, more seriously. "The people in this city look too cheerful for anything to have happened."

The doors on the other side of the room suddenly creaked open, and a beautiful young woman with a brunette pixie cut walked in. She broke into a broad smile when she saw her cousin and hurried over.

"Elsa!" Rapunzel exclaimed. "I just got word that you'd arrived."

Elsa stood up, and they hugged. "Is everyone alright?" She asked.

"Yes," Rapunzel replied, stepping back and brushing a wisp of hair past her ear. Her eyes grew concerned. "Why? Is something wrong?"

She glanced over at Hans, the worry in her brow increasing.

"Yes," Elsa said, "but it looks like things are still safe here. That's good."

"Everdark's forces have launched a full-scale invasion of earth," Hans explained. "We managed to fight them off in Arendelle, but it was close, and it was costly."

"Oh, dear," Rapunzel said, covering her mouth. "Did anybody… I mean, did anybody, you know…"

"Kristoff got taken from us," Elsa said solemnly.

"Oh, no," Rapunzel whispered. "Is Anna alright? She must be beside herself with grief."

"She's strong," Elsa said. "She's getting better every day now."

"Elsa?" Queen Arianna's voice sounded from the other side of the chamber. "Hans? What a pleasant surprise – I just heard that you'd arrived! To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Elsa turned and smiled sadly at her aunt. "Perhaps you'd better take a seat." She turned to glance back at Rapunzel. "Both of you. Hans and I have a lot to tell you."

She and Hans filled them in on what had happened in the fight against Everdark since the events in Corona, skimming over some of the less pertinent details like Hans's death and subsequent reincarnation, or Elsa's enslavement in the Sea of Stars. They came to the invasion, and explained their defense of Arendelle, and how they had no idea how many cities had been hit. Finally, they explained the plan that they had come up with, to bring the world's nations under one banner as the Unified Empire, to better stand against the forces of darkness.

"So at the end of the day," Elsa said, "That's why we're here. We need your allegiance. We need your help."

Arianna and Rapunzel met each other's gaze for a few long moments of silence. Elsa had no idea what was going through their minds. Did they think her and Hans fools? Did they appreciate the magnitude of the threat that they now faced? Did they understand the necessity of a single ruler in chaotic times?

"You're… you're asking me to give up my rule and make Corona an Arendane colony?" Arianna said, a deep frown creasing her brow.

"No, not at all!" Elsa said, hurriedly. "Arendelle would just be one part of the empire, and so would Corona. You'd maintain your title and authority within these borders, but ultimately the regional governors would answer to the empress."

"But why would I do that?" Arianna said, sounding legitimately confused. "Willingly concede authority?"

Elsa bit her lower lip, a habit she'd picked up from Odette. _Somehow, I thought it was going to go more easily with you two._

"Protection," Hans said. "When the forces of darkness attack your city, we'd be able to deploy defenders to help protect it from around the world. Fighting together, we can make the world's armies many times more powerful, in practice."

Rapnuzel frowned and interjected, "But just being part of the empire doesn't mean that you'll be able to get armies here immediately. I mean, even Arendelle is two weeks' journey away!"

"Not for much longer," Elsa said. "Everdark's forces use portals called 'wargates' to instantaneously transport troops across great distances. We have our best minds working on a way to replicate those portals, and we should have the ability quite soon."

 _I hope. Godspeed, Odette._

"With a wargate in every city in the empire, we'd be able to do exactly that. Instantaneous transport."

Arianna sighed. "You mustn't think that I'm being rude, or power-hungry, dear, but I don't see why I'd have to be part of the empire to take part in its protection. I imagine that you'd have a moral obligation to assist with our defense. Am I correct?"

 _She doesn't get it,_ Elsa thought with dismay. _She thinks that we're trying to take power from her._

"Well…" Elsa said, "yes."

"So then I don't see why I should willingly concede power to a child. Even if that child is a very favored niece of mine."

Elsa realized that, from a Machiavellian standpoint, everything Arianna said was logical. Pragmatic. In fact, it was irresponsible to expect a ruler to make anything _except_ these arguments.

"It's not that I don't want to do my part in ensuring that the world remains safe," Arianna was saying, "but you must forgive me. I am a very traditional woman, and through all these years I've grown rather accustomed to doing things my own way. Now that I help guide the path for my entire nation, I have come to trust only myself regarding the safety of Corona."

Elsa glanced at Hans, helpless. He seemed deep in thought, but a moment later he spoke.

"We're terribly sorry, your majesty. We apologize because we don't feel that we made our case to you very well. With your permission, however, we would like to refine our arguments and bring them to you again. Hopefully, we can make a more persuasive case as to why ours is the most logical path forwards."

Arianna regarded them both thoughtfully. She really wasn't angry, or defensive. She was a rational queen making rational arguments that they should have had a plan to answer.

"Of course," she said, nodding, "though I'm afraid that you might find my opinions rather settled on the matter. Should I have the servants prepare the guest bedrooms for the both of you, then?"

"That would be lovely, aunt," Elsa said smiling.

Arianna turned and made a motion towards one of the guards, and he walked over to lead them to their rooms.

She and Hans let themselves be towed away. Once they were outside the chamber, Elsa turned to glance at Hans.

"Well, that didn't go very well," she said.

"Not at all," he replied. "Not well at all."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 _You can lead a person to truth, but you can't make them accept it._

* * *

Corona,

Germany

November 2nd, 1843

Evening had fallen. Elsa sat on a little couch in the guest chambers they had been given while Hans paced the floor, the room's window open and letting in a cold wind. The first snows of the season had melted away, but since then the weather had gotten bitter, and then next time snow came, it was likely to last the season. According to Anna and the others, they'd experienced a month of nearly constant rains before Everdark's invasion began, culminating in a terrible storm the night the enemy ships arrived. In ancient times, during Everdark's first invasion of the world, it had possessed the ability to create earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

It seemed that this time, too, the world itself was going to turn against them.

"Maybe Arianna is right," Elsa said. "Maybe this entire idea was stupid."

Hans stopped pacing and turned to look at her, his mouth a thin frown.

"No," he said. "No, it's not a stupid idea. Whether or not people realize it yet, they're going to need us. And we don't have time to waste on politics while we're trying to save the world."

"But is it really different if we just place a gate in Corona and let her do things her own way?" Elsa said. "I mean, do we really need absolute authority?"

"Imagine that we allow Arianna to rule in a separate but equal kingdom," Hans said. "We maintain a portal to her city to use, should we need to defend them, or should they need to evacuate to safer lands. What happens when Arendelle is attacked again? Or any other city that we possess? Is Arianna under the same obligation to respond as we are?"

Elsa knew what he was saying. "Hans, my aunt isn't heartless. She would help us."

"Alright," Hans said, "that's fine. But if we allow Arianna this freedom, then we would have no ability to deny any other ruler the same relationship with us. Even if Arianna would be a cooperative ruler, we can't guarantee that everyone else would be."

"So…"

"So we're not doing this out of the goodness of our hearts," Hans said. "We're not just the reinforcements that pledge to show up and save the day whenever Everdark decides to attack another city. Besides, without the combined forces of many different kingdoms, it's dubious that we'd even be able to do much saving."

Elsa rubbed her face. He was right. The world was stronger together than divided. But Arianna wasn't wrong. They _were_ conquerors.

"Well, what do we do?" Elsa asked. "I mean, what we really need is some way to explain to Arianna how high the stakes are."

"I'm not sure that would work," Hans said, rubbing at his jaw. He walked over to the window and placed his hands on the sill, looking out into the night. A few twinkling glows came from the city below. "After all, your aunt _should_ know full well how dangerous Everdark can be. She lost her husband to it. Half the city's nobility got purged."

That was perhaps the most bothersome part of all of this, to Elsa. Surely, Arianna must grasp the stakes. If she resisted this much to the idea of submitting to imperial rule, then they had no chance at all with nations that hadn't yet seen the effects of the invasion.

"What if Arianna's been dominated, too?" Elsa asked softly.

Hans turned back to look at her. "Do you think that's possible?"

"I'm not sure," Elsa answered honestly. "She still talks like herself. She still acts like herself, as far as I know. Rapunzel didn't look like she thought anything was going on. But I feel like she would have at _least_ given our idea the time of day if something wasn't wrong. She's a rational woman."

Hans nodded. "Well, there's only one way to find out."

"What's that?" Elsa said. "Ask her politely?"

Hans smirked and turned to the open window, peering outside. "More or less."

He swung a leg out the window, and then pulled himself completely out. Elsa sighed.

"Ah. Yes. How I've missed the way you solve your problems."

She followed after him and glanced out the window. She looked around and saw him ten feet below the window, on a sloping, shingled roof. It peaked a short distance away from them, forming the ceiling of a vaulted atrium down below. Hans glanced back up at her and gave a thumbs-up. He started to pick his way over the roof with surprising stealth. Elsa sighed again and swung out after him, her dress fluttering slightly before she hit the roof with a soft crunch, shortening her knees into a crouch.

Hans turned back and raised a finger to his lips. Elsa rolled her eyes and scaled up the roof after him.

"This is a remarkably stupid idea," she whispered.

Hans smiled. "I have no idea where your aunt's chambers are." He made a motion with his hand. _Lead the way._

Elsa shook her head, but she took the lead and picked her way over the slanted roof, running her hand along the nearby wall as she edged her way down the other side, placing her feet carefully lest she slip. It was startlingly precarious and required a lot of concentration. She turned back and felt a surge of annoyance. Hans moved casually down the rooftop, appearing nonchalant. Even bored.

"When did you have time to get good at cat burglary?" Elsa whispered, reaching the edge of the rooftop and peering around the side wall. A dizzying drop to the ground below extended below them, and only thin buttresses provided a way to move along this wall.

"Well, you know, Elsa," Hans said, "Some of us just have a natural gift for martial exploits."

"You know," Elsa said, still peering around the side of the wall, "Kariena always complains that you have no sense of humor."

"Ah, well, you see, when I'm with Kariena, I'm the straight man," Hans said. "But you're positively humorless, so I have to make sure to keep things balanced."

Elsa rolled her eyes again. "Alright, well, try to keep up."

She stepped off the side of the roof, and a thin track of ice appeared beneath her feet. She skated along it, off along the side of the wall. Hans watched her go, and then slipped around the side of the wall and started to clamber along the buttresses.

They came to a stop on the rooftop of the castle several wings away, beside a large tower that yearned for the sky, several stories taller than the rest of the building. Elsa looked up at a balcony, high overhead. According to the royal family, Rapunzel was kidnapped through that balcony.

"Alright," Elsa said, "Unless she moved, the royal quarters of the palace were in this tower."

"I'm starting to think that we shouldn't have left the window in that sitting room open," Hans said.

"Why?" Elsa whispered, glancing over at him. "You think that someone's going to come into the wing and realize that we're gone?"

"Oh, I have no doubt about that," Hans said, looking up at the balcony above. "I suspect that they're already searching for us. I just wish that we hadn't made it so obvious that we went out the window."

Elsa frowned, and cast a glance backwards. If they were being followed, it wasn't obvious. Not for the first time, she wished for some sort of magic that would let her detect people. Apparently, telepaths were able to sense the magical signatures of other spellcasters, but that would be no good for a more mundane pursuer. She shook her head and tried to focus.

"I should be able to get us up there," she whispered. She had no idea how Mother Gothel had scaled the tower; there was little in the way of handholds or footholds. It was practically a sheer drop.

She called magic to herself and gave it a bit more focus than usual; rather than just a sheet of ice in front of herself, she started to form flights of stairs, meeting at landings along the corners of the rectangular tower and leading the way up to the balcony. As an afterthought, she created a railing along the drop side of the stairs, realizing that to Hans, they would probably be slippery.

Hans whistled appreciatively, and they started up.

On the second landing, Elsa stopped, Hans nearly running into her from behind. She turned to face him.

"This is a really bad idea."

"Probably," he admitted.

"What the hell do you think we're going to find?" She asked. "She's not going to have a diary entry saying 'oh, gee, it looks like I'm evil now.'"

Hans shook his head. "Members of the Cult of Entropy always have some sort of material link to Everdark. Usually an obelisk dais. They can draw their god's attention by spilling blood onto the dais."

A few months ago, Elsa had learned that the patriarch of her family line, the ancient Ceristo Siguror, had been a worshipper of Everdark himself. He had possessed many artifacts that helped to demonstrate his devotion, including a jet locket that Elsa still kept in a trunk by her bedside in Arendelle.

"Okay," Elsa conceded, "but if we're discovered, we'll look like assassins. They'll think that we never meant to negotiate for their allegiance at all, that we were just sent to off the Queen and force the others into submission."

"Well, we best not get caught, then," Hans said, smirking as he stepped past her and continued up the steps. In a more serious tone, he added, "besides, one way or another, we can't leave Corona without their support."

He met Elsa's gaze. "Right?"

He was right. She sighed.

"Alright. Just be careful."

She flicked her wrist and followed up after him, the steps behind her dissolving back into water vapor.

They came to Arianna's balcony, and by now they were no longer whispering to each other. They stepped over the marble banister and onto the structure itself. Elsa dismissed the last bits of the icy staircase behind them. Hans stepped forwards towards the double-doors that let into the sleeping chambers. They were heavy oak, with a firm lock on the interior, installed after Rapunzel's kidnapping. They would be difficult to breach with anything conventional.

The night was very clear, and by pale moonlight Elsa could make out the keyhole. She knelt down and placed her finger against it. Ice filled the lock, and she flourished her fingers to finish a key-like handle. She twisted, and there was a soft _chunk._ She placed her hand on one of the heavy handles and tried to pull the door outwards. Nothing. She tried to push the door inwards, and it budged slightly before stopping again. There was a heavy bolt on the other side in addition to the lock.

She stepped back, pantomimed a bolt against a door to Hans, and he nodded.

Then he _slipped through_ the door. His form blurred, for a moment, and he passed through the heavy oak as though it weren't even there.

Hans had been born as a mundane human, but during his service to Hades he had gained the powers of two wizards using a dark magical device called a _tensing disk._ Apparently, those souls were partly why he did not die several months ago when he was stabbed through the heart. In any case, the powers that he had once had were gone, but they had been replaced with something else. Hans had been brought back as an Avenger, an archmage, like Elsa.

He was still getting a handle on his new abilities, but one of them was this. He could make himself incorporeal for a few, brief moments. He could literally walk through walls, a few times a day. It was less taxing than speeding himself up, one of the previous powers he had possessed, but took more concentration than shielding himself, which had come practically effortlessly. Being without the ability to force bullets and magic alike astray left Hans feeling exposed during a fight, but he supposed that he was just going to have to learn to play to his new strengths.

The Avenger, he was learning, was clandestine, and shadowy. His powers were secretive and deadly, to complement his role as an infiltrator, and an assassin. It suited him well.

There was a very faint scraping as Hans moved the bolt, and then the door opened silently inwards. Elsa was grateful that the hinges seemed to have been oiled recently, and she stepped over the threshold to join Hans in the darkened chamber.

They glanced around. There was practically no ambient light, save the sliver trailing in through the cracked doorway, but Elsa remembered Rapunzel telling her that Arianna and Frederick no longer used this room as their bedchamber, after the kidnapping. They'd moved that to another room in their wing, and now this one was some sort of –

A light blazed to life, hurting Elsa's eyes. She winced as the lantern came un-shuttered, revealing Queen Arianna and Rapunzel sitting in chairs on the other side of the room. There were no soldiers with them, and they weren't armed to fight.

"Well, well, well," Arianna said, voice surprisingly harsh. "Imagine my surprise when I find a pair of political ambassadors and friends revealing themselves to be villains of the lowest caliber. What did I tell you, Rapunzel?"

Rapunzel stared at them, mouth slightly agape. Her eyes were disbelieving, stricken with fear. Arianna continued.

"Assassination seems to be your only calling, dear Hans. And I expected more from you, Elsa. I really did."

She waved a hand dismissively. "We have no one here to protect us. We have no wizards, and I know full well that I could field as many normal men as I like against you and I'd only succeed in getting their blood on my carpet."

Elsa realized, with sudden horror, what they saw her as. She wasn't Arianna's niece, Rapunzel's cousin, any longer. She wasn't a beloved member of their family. She was a killer. Someone who overthrew governments. It didn't matter that Frederick had been dominated by Everdark, because he'd still been Arianna's husband, and Rapunzel's father. He hadn't stopped being those things just because he'd fallen to the service of darkness.

And Elsa and Hans had taken him from them.

"We have no intention of being slaughtered by you," Arianna said. "So yes, we submit. You may do as you wish with our little kingdom. Just please, don't hurt my daughter."

Elsa couldn't move. All she could see was the fear in their eyes.

 _I've become a monster._

xxx

Odette sat at a little desk that she'd had put up beside her bed in Sadden's manor, a candle puttering its way into nonexistence beside her as she shuffled through a sheaf of old papers. The standing clock beside the wall chunked rhythmically. The world was quiet. Everyone else had gone to sleep, it seemed.

She glanced back down at the pages, and for a moment she had to struggle to get her eyes to focus. _What am I even reading?_

It was incredibly futile, poring over old texts from the cathedral's stores, desperate to find some ancient, hidden clue about wargates that somehow hadn't been considered important by the generations of monks who'd kept the texts throughout the centuries. Obviously, it was a wild goose chase. But what else could she do? She had no way to discover what the sages of Celestus had known. She had no connection to a past so distant –

Except she did.

Suddenly stunned that she hadn't thought about it before, Odette jumped up from the desk, nearly tipping a pot of ink over in the process and scrambled to the bed. She fell to her knees and threw back the sheets, digging around underneath until her hand hit a large trunk. She pulled it out and sat back, growing less confident with her decision.

The last time she'd touched Ceristo Siguror's locket – well, the _only_ time she'd touched it – she'd been made sick. It was flush with dark energy, and even now, sitting beside the closed trunk, Odette thought she felt it.

 _No, that's just your mind playing tricks on you,_ the rational part of her said. _It's been under your bed for months, now, in this trunk, and you haven't felt a thing. You're just scared._

 _There's nothing to be afraid of._

Odette undid the clasps to the chest with shaking fingers, and slowly pulled back the lid. Inside were several neatly folded dresses – they were Elsa's, most of them from before her parents had died. For some reason, she neither wore them, nor let anyone get rid of them. So they lay in the bottom of the chest, neatly folded, slowly accumulating dust. Nestled in their folds on top was Ceristo Siguror's medallion. The metal of the casing and chain gleamed in the flickering candlelight, almost brilliant. However, the jet seemed to eat the light, so dark that it appeared formless.

Odette gulped. Now she felt it. A strange, aberrant energy, making her throat feel tight, and her fingers cold. She slowly reached out and brushed her fingers against the chain. Nothing. She trembled as she closed her fingers around the cool metal, waiting for the wave of nausea to overpower her.

It didn't come. She took one deep breath first, then another. Then something else came.

Unbidden, the story Anna had read to her earlier filled her mind. Odette opened her eyes, and was surrounded by horrible, gaunt streaks of shadow, flickering and flowing about the chamber around her. One extended a withered arm towards her, and she screamed, falling backwards onto the floor.

The things were upon her, dancing in twisted, inhuman ways. Odette realized that she still held the locket in her left hand, fingers closed like a pale white vise. It took a surprising amount of concentration to open her fingers and let the jet fall to the ground. Odette was surprised to see a bloody tear along the palm of her hand where the chain had touched. The locket bounced once, and then rested, and the room was filled with horrid screams as the gwyllions were sucked into the locket, the gemstone eating their shadowy forms.

There was a moment or two of silence, during which the only sound was Odette's ragged breathing. Then light seemed to flood the chamber again as the candle on the desk came back to life.

"Jesus," she whispered, arms shaking as she knelt on all fours on the floor. She moved her right hand, leaving a bloody handprint on the hardwood. _I need to bandage this up,_ she thought vaguely.

A deep rumble came to life in the chamber. It felt as if the very floorboards below her were shaking.

"I apologize for the fright you've been given," Everdark's voice said. "But this is a dark object. An object of your worst fears. Of your nightmares."

Odette looked up, still shivering. The light was gone again, and the room had grown very cold. There was a seeping darkness filling the other side of the chamber.

"You have far more emotion than your lover," Everdark said softly. "So much fear. I can see it. I can see it all."


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:

Come back next week for the conclusion of _Wargate!_ Then, the week after that, (August 27th), be ready for the launch of TLD Volume III, _Immortal!_

Big things are on the way! :)

xxx

Chapter Three

 _He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command._

 _Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince_

* * *

Sadden's Manor,

Arendelle

November 3rd, 1843

The courtyard bells began to toll midnight faintly in the distance as the darkness swirled around Odette. She fought back her fear and shakily rose to her feet, refusing to bow before this… _creature._

"Get out of here," she said, trying to inject confidence into her voice. She knew that Everdark wasn't really here. It was a projection, an apparition. It couldn't hurt her. At least, she hoped.

"Why, that isn't any way to treat a guest," Everdark said. Its voice sounded amused. And why shouldn't it? It was toying with her. "Besides, you called me here in the first place."

"No, I did not," she said firmly. The shaking was leaving her limbs. She was starting to recover her confidence.

She took a step towards the locket on the floor, and instantly Everdark's form twisted. Though it didn't have any sort of form resembling a head, it seemed to her to be trying to look at the fist-sized jet medallion. Why? It had just told her a moment before that it was a dark object. Surely it knew what it had arrived in?

Maybe not.

Odette quickly palmed the locket, surprised to find that now, it felt pleasantly warm. She stepped backwards from the swirling darkness in the chamber, breath catching as it started to swirl faster.

"What was that?" It said, unexpectedly.

Odette frowned, mind whirling. On an impulse, she thought to herself, _It's Ceristo Siguror's locket._

Then she said aloud, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The shadow swirled, but didn't come any closer than the edge of the double bed. It seemed to be confined to the far side of the room.

"Do not play games with me, child," the darkness said.

 _It can't read my mind. It might be able to sense my emotions, but it can't read my mind._

It didn't make any sense. Elsa had been dominated by Everdark just months ago. She was under its control for quite some time, until – what _had_ broken Elsa's domination? They'd never figured it out. Had Everdark's powers gotten weaker? That would certainly explain why the god couldn't enter her mind right now. Perhaps its mind was more divided, focusing on managing different parts of the invasion. Whatever the case, Odette was grateful that her mind was her own.

"I know not what dark object you speak of," she said, adopting a lofty tone. "You have arrived here unbidden, foul creature."

She twisted the locket in her hands, feeling a droplet of blood from her cut hand slide down its metal surface and drip to the floor.

"You have made a blood offering," Everdark said. "But I would only have sensed it if you possessed a summoning stone, which you would have had to obtain from one of my cultists. A fairly important one, at that."

The God of Darkness didn't sound distressed by the prospect of this. Instead, it sounded… interested, to Odette.

"None of my forces sent to Arendelle during the primary assault possessed one. So you must have obtained it from somewhere else."

Odette realized that she shouldn't leave Everdark too long to work out the answer to its question. So she went on the offensive.

"Why do you sacrifice wizards to power your wargates?" She asked.

Everdark's musings abruptly stopped. Once again it swirled, almost as if the shadowy darkness was turning to look at her.

"Of course. The Protector would already have shared with you all of the information that she learned in the Sea of Stars. Yet still, the question strikes me as odd. So I ask to you: why do you find this strange?"

Odette frowned. "It seems awfully wasteful. Why not do it another way?"

This was a dangerous line of questioning, she knew. If Everdark figured out what she was up to, perhaps it would be able to find a way to sabotage their plans. But she tried to make her voice sound curious in a purely academic sense. As if she were interested, perhaps, in learning about Everdark's ways.

Everdark's voice sounded amused. "There is no other way to create a wargate, child. A magical soul is required to bind the magics and make it stable. My forces are creating the portals the same way that humanity has always done, all the way back to the Elder Days."

That was a lie. It had to be, Odette thought. There had to be another way.

"How did you lose control of Elsa?" Odette asked, trying to keep Everdark off balance.

The darkness shifted again, this time quite abruptly. It stopped, all the little inky trails hovering in place. Then there was a flood of warmth, and it disappeared from the chamber. The candle flickered back to life, and suddenly each of Odette's breaths seemed fuller and sweeter, as if she'd been slowly choking before.

"Apparently we don't discuss your shortcomings," she said aloud. But nothing replied. Everdark was gone.

Odette pulled the locket out from behind her back and sighed, holding it in both hands. A smear of her blood ran along the left side, but her hand wasn't bleeding anymore. _Well, this was a bust,_ she thought. Elsa had been able to travel back in time with it. Well, not really _travel_ back, but at least experience visions from thousands of years ago. Back when there were real wizards, wielders of magic learned enough to truly understand a complex ritual like a wargate. Odette suspected that even Everdark's best wizards behaved like children trying to play adult.

She tossed the locket onto the bed and walked down to slump beside it. She looked down at her hand, leaned over to the servant's bell to ring for a basin of water, and then thought better of it. It was after midnight. She didn't want to wake anyone. So Odette stood, wrapped herself in a thick robe, and picked up the candle dish. On a whim, she slipped Ceristo's locket on, around her neck, and tucked it underneath the fleece. She stepped out into the dim hallway. There was another small candle about twenty feet away, in a holder on the wall, highlighting doorways at regular intervals.

Odette padded past them and headed downstairs.

It was cold inside the big house in a way that seemed distinctly uninviting. Odette hadn't ever really gotten accustomed to the giant spaces that nobles liked to accouter themselves with. She ran one hand along the banister as she headed down the huge grand staircase, looking down at the pool of moonlight that collected in the center of the floor, shined through a large set of windows above the entrance doorway. That glass had been replaced a few months earlier, as had much of the building's façade. It had all been destroyed during the revolution.

She made it to the kitchen, filled a jug of water from the cistern, and headed back upstairs. Once or twice, she stopped when she thought she heard something, but it was always a trick of her imagination. Somehow, the rest of the manor had managed to sleep through her encounter with Everdark.

Upstairs, she filled a basin on the floor and dunked her wounded hand into it, watching little clouds of red spread outwards from the cut. It stung. She reached in and started to clean it off with a sponge, wiping it clean and wincing. Some sort of movement didn't agree with her, because there was a sudden, stabbing pain in her hand. She yelped.

"How is it?" A voice asked. Odette gasped and looked up, surprised to see that she wasn't in her room at Sadden's Manor anymore. She was underneath a windblown tarp, stretched across a lean-to, in what looked like an ancient army camp.

The structure was part of a long line of similar tents arranged in a fairly neat line, across from another line forming something of a street. Down the pathway walked many soldiers, clad in gleaming bronze armor and wearing skirt-like _kamas._ The men had tan, oily skin, and they carried small swords and little round shields. They didn't look like weapons of war to Odette. More like… dueling equipment, perhaps. Only some of the men wore helmets, big bronze caps that supported bright plumes on the heads. They were all a deep green, like the kamas that the men wore.

Another man knelt on the other side of the basin, looking at her with a concerned gaze. His helmet lay on the ground beside him, and as she looked at him he knelt down, plunging one hand into the basin and reaching for her hand.

Surprised, Odette pulled it away, taking a step back. She stumbled out of the frame of another man, sitting beside the basin and washing a wound on his hand that looked practically identical to the one she had.

 _What the?_

"I will be fine," the injured man, who had no facial hair, unlike his friend, who had a thick beard. Weren't Greek soldiers supposed to be clean-shaven? These men looked Greek, at least, and all of the Renaissance art showed beardless Greek heroes. Vaguely, it occurred to Odette that it was well-documented that historical artistry tended to project contemporary qualities on to its figures. Renaissance men found it fashionable to be clean-shaven, so their paintings of Greek men were had no beards, too.

"Make sure that you clean it well," the man with the beard said, standing. "You don't want to get rot."

 _They understood that uncleaned wounds would lead to infection,_ Odette thought to herself, realizing just how many ridiculous assumptions that modern scholars made about the past. She suddenly felt very excited. This was an academic gold mine!

The bearded man turned and walked from the tent, and Odette followed after him. If this vision behaved like the ones that Elsa had, Odette knew that the people here wouldn't be able to see or hear her. She was a silent observer. So she followed the bearded man as he walked through the camp, eventually stepping into another tent.

Here a group of three women knelt in a half-circle on the floor, clasping hands and murmuring softly. They wore robes of a deep red, which set them apart from everyone else she'd seen in the camp. They'd all been in the same forest green. Perhaps these were prisoners?

 _No,_ she realized as the bearded man bowed his head to the women, and they stopped their chanting and looked up at him. The woman in the center had haunting yellow irises. _They're witches._

"What is it, Kynaius?" The first witch asked.

The man knelt before them, and seemed to shimmer in the air for a moment. "The enemy is moving again, Sanguant Hythirion. Thalone scouts have just returned from a skirmish with the trailing force they left behind. We will need to use a _celiere_ to catch them."

Odette's brain seemed to naturally translate much of what these people were saying, but the words _sanguant_ and _celiere_ from the bearded man's last sentence stood out. _Sang_ … did this witch's power have something to do with blood? _Celiere_ was harder. From context, however, she realized that this man could be talking about a wargate. Her excitement started to shift from academic interest to hope. Could this be the answer to their problems, after all?

Sanguant Hythirion nodded curtly. "Palona had surmised as much." She nodded in the direction of one of the other women. Palona appeared to be blind – her eyes were concealed by a silk cloth.

A seer, of some sort?

"So we have already begun the ritual preparations," Hythirion said. The strange shimmering happened again, a little distortion in the air. Almost small enough that Odette thought it was a trick of her eyes. "Your sacrifice will be appreciated."

She extended a hand towards the bearded man, and curled her fingers into a claw. Her face distorted with concentration, and suddenly all the blood seemed to flee the bearded man's face. His skin became pale, and his eyes rolled back into his head. He collapsed to the ground, lolling onto his side, and his mouth opened. A deep red shadow seemed to pour out of his gaping mouth into Sanguant Hythirion's now-outstretched palm, gathering into a little ball.

 _No,_ Odette thought with horror as the now-lifeless soldier collapsed back, his body going limp.

The ancients had used ritual sacrifices to create their portals.

The air seemed to shimmer a final time, and the witches began to speak to each other, but it was lost over a warping in Odette's ears. The world grayed out around her, and the next time she blinked her eyes, she was kneeling on the floor of her bedroom again, breathing as if she'd just run a mile.

Odette slowly wrapped her hands around her knees, feeling a creeping chill despite her cloak. Unbidden, words seemed to appear in her mind, almost as if she were reading them from one of her university textbooks.

 _Once thought to be a gift from the Lost Immortals, magic actually comes from Everdark. The original spellcasters were its most faithful servants. This connection is what makes it easier for Everdark to dominate wizards than ordinary mortals._

Odette gulped. It seemed that Everdark was right. There was no other way. Wargates, then, would remain a tool of the enemy only. She stood up, resignedly, and walked over to the desk to clear away the books she'd brought back from the study. It was no use poring over them for hidden details anymore.

As she gathered them together, she noticed the little book of parables that Anna had read to her from earlier in the day. With the stupid story _Arvid and the Gwyllions,_ that for some reason kept popping into her mind.

 _Maybe it's trying to tell kids not to run away,_ Anna had said.

Odette snorted.

Wait.

What was the other thing that she'd said? _Maybe it's trying to teach kids not to jump to conclusions._

Or maybe… maybe the story meant to teach children to look beyond appearances. Sometimes the truth was hidden behind a lie. Something about the vision had seemed odd, to Odette. What was the strange shimmer that kept happening, almost as if there was some sort of interference in the vision. Almost as if something didn't connect.

Almost as if it had been altered.

Odette dashed across the chamber and clamped her hand over the locket again, and closed her eyes, feeling a roaring blaze of magic kick up in her chest.

"Show me the truth," she whispered.

Elsa turned to Hans. He seemed calm. Thoughtful, even. Sometimes it annoyed her, the way he seemed to be unshakeable under pressure. He looked like he was in the middle of a rigorous philosophical discussion. Which, she realized a moment later, he might have been having internally.

He calmly drew a pair of pistols and leveled them at Rapunzel and Arianna.

Elsa's eyes widened. _No_ , she thought, and she was about to try to stop him from shooting them, but he didn't. Instead, he spoke.

"Well, I suppose that you've seen through our little ruse," Hans said, voice sounding regretful. "But I must admit, I suspected that you might from the moment that we arrived. You seemed to be on to us from the beginning."

Arianna looked surprised at his candid words. Or maybe it was the gun pointed at her. She sounded as if she were trying to fight back fear as she said, "I never forgave you for killing my husband, Hans. You can rot in hell, for all I care."

Hans smiled crookedly. "Well, you see, I was actually something of a regular guest in Hell for quite some time over the past year. But, uh, there's new management down there. Seems I'm not exactly welcome anymore."

Rapunzel moaned with fear.

Arianna crossed her arms. "What are you going to do, then? Kill us?"

Elsa wanted to know the answer to that question, too.

"Of course not," Hans said. "That is, unless you give us no other choice. But no, we're well aware that the transition of power will be the smoothest if Corona's figureheads remain the same. We're really trying to be the nice guys here, you know. You'll keep the same title, the same ritzy palace, all the servants and whatnot. Once every couple of days, you comply with a very reasonable request of ours, and we part ways both the merrier."

Elsa almost laughed, she was so overwhelmed by the absurdity of the situation. Hans was grabbing the reins. She hadn't planned any of this with him. She wondered if he was improvising on the spot.

"Really, it's a sweet deal," Hans said. "A far sweeter deal than death, if I must say so."

Elsa saw a little bead of sweat trickle down Arianna's forehead. She believed him. She feared for her life. Elsa realized, with no small amount of horror, that Hans was doing it. He was securing them Corona.

But Elsa didn't want to build a state of fear.

"P-please," Rapunzel said, squirming in her chair, trying to get away from the nozzle of his gun without any sort of sudden movement that might cause him to shoot her. I don't want to die…"

Elsa saw that she was starting to cry. Elsa felt sick.

"And we don't want you to, either," Hans said. "So, Arianna. We're only going to ask you one more time. Swear fealty to the Unified Empire, and her empress."

Arianna said nothing. She was paralyzed by fear.

"Do it now," Hans said, an edge in his voice that scared Elsa.

"Hans," Elsa started to say, but she was cut off as Arianna slid out of her seat, onto her knees on the carpet, and bowed her head.

"I swear fealty to the Unified Empire, and her empress Anna Siguror. I will serve the empire faithfully and true."

Crying, Rapunzel knelt on the ground and said the same words.

Hans slid the guns back into their holsters. "The empire welcomes you," he said simply.

Elsa stumbled back through the room and retched over the balcony.

She was wiping her mouth on the back of her sleeve, still feeling quite ill, when she heard a powerful _crack,_ not unlike thunder. She glanced up and saw a blinding tear open in the sky on the other side of the balcony. Elsa stumbled backwards, hitting the balcony railing painfully and calling magic to her fingers. The light widened until… it looked almost like doorway.

Anna and Odette stepped through the portal.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

 _The world goes not to the weak._

* * *

Corona,

Germany

November 3rd, 1843

"Elsa? What's wrong?" Anna said, brow knitting with concern. She knelt beside her sister, still leaning over the edge of the balcony.

Elsa turned back towards the open doorway into Arianna's chambers. Odette had already gone through the portal and now came to a dead stop, staring at the scene unfolding within. Hans turned towards the newcomers, his face impenetrable as he slid his guns back into their holsters.

"Odette. Anna," he said.

"What the hell is going on here?" Odette exclaimed.

Elsa realized that things were going to spiral out of control very quickly. Anna already hated Hans, and arriving here to see him with guns drawn on her aunt and cousin, well – she'd given them one job, and they'd failed at it spectacularly. Elsa felt a sudden, overpowering shame. Of course, Odette had managed to make a wargate. Confronted with the task of unlocking secrets of magic that hadn't been known to the world for millennia, she'd found a way. And Elsa couldn't even get her aunt to agree to work together with them.

"Enough," Anna said, her voice calm but imperious. The room grew quiet, and Arianna and Rapunzel watched with silent apprehension. "Enough."

Elsa's sister stood in the center of the room, empty space surrounding her in a wake. _She looks so mature,_ Elsa thought, despite herself. _When did she stop being that little girl I knew?_

"I don't know how things got to the point that they did when Odette and I arrived, but it's not important. Hans. I will tolerate no threat against my family. Remember who you serve."

Elsa turned towards Hans, surprised to see him look chagrined. He lowered his head. His impulsivity had nearly cost them, and he knew it.

"And Arianna," Anna said, turning to where her aunt was picking herself up off of the floor. "I can guess, from Hans's rash behavior, that you've been resistant to the idea of joining my empire."

Queen Arianna looked stunned. She did not seem able to respond.

"I take it from your silence that I'm correct," Anna said. Her voice was not unkind. But still, it was commanding. Elsa had never heard her sister speak like this before.

 _We made the right choice, making her empress._

"I apologize that my ambassadors failed to make our case convincingly enough, but this won't do," Anna said. "You have to realize that our best interest is also yours."

"I –" Arianna began, but Anna continued.

"You wish to give Corona the best chance of survival through the next years," Anna said, "And we want to ensure the same for Arendelle. These goals are not mutually exclusive. We are stronger together."

"Elsa and Hans made the same arguments –" Arianna protested, but still Anna insisted.

"Surely, you do not believe that you have the ability to defend Corona adequately alone?"

"Well, no –"

"But then surely, you must be intimately familiar with the dark magic used by our enemy. You must have some sort of expertise that will afford your people protection, no?"

"Anna, -"

"In that case, you seem to be laboring under the delusion that you have the luxury of being selective about your allies," Anna said, her voice growing more severe. Not cold, exactly, but just serious. "I assure you that you have no such luxury."

Arianna's eyes widened. She couldn't seem to believe that Anna would talk to her in such a way.

"So allow me to rephrase the offer that my ambassadors made to you. I generously propose to exchange the protection of my wizards and my army to Corona, for which I expect only loyalty in return. You have a smaller army than Arendelle, no fleet to speak of, and the only wizard in your entire kingdom is within this room. I mean no offense when I say that Rapunzel is hardly trained with her power.

"Let me make this very clear: Corona does not offer _anything_ of substantive value to Arendelle. This is not an exchange of mutual benefit, and therefore you will not be granted powers equal to mine. Accept our help, or try to weather the coming storm alone. That is our offer."

Elsa couldn't believe it. Anna had been harsher, even, than Hans, somehow. But… but she was right. Of course she was right. They didn't have time or resources to waste on political games. The entire world was at stake.

The silence lingered for a few more moments, during which Anna regarded her aunt with an imperious gaze. Eventually, the older woman crumbled.

"Alright, Anna. You've won. You will have my loyalty."

"Good," Anna said simply. "You will allow Odette to select a proper location for placing a permanent portal, and you will make the proper arrangements for its care. Once this is settled, we'll send over some bureaucrats to help arrange for a proper ceremony to mark the transfer of power."

Arianna faltered, then recovered and said stiffly, "Alright."

Anna raised an eyebrow in a manner that Elsa found startlingly familiar.

"-my lady," Arianna finished.

"Excellent. I apologize once more for the threats that Hans made against you. I assure you that his actions were not my intention. But we all have reason to be glad that you've come to see the wisdom of this arrangement."

"Yes, my lady," Arianna said lamely.

"Welcome to the empire, auntie," Anna said with a dazzling smile, before she turned and swept from the chamber. She waved a hand, and without another word, Elsa and Hans fell into step behind her.

Elsa would have liked to stay with Odette – they hadn't had much time for each other since Elsa proposed. As a matter of fact, they hadn't even pinned down a tentative date for the wedding. Some time when things quiet down. But she knew that her duties were too important. So she smiled sadly at Odette as they passed and stepped with her sister back through the portal to Arendelle.

Just before she was spirited away, she heard Odette saying to Arianna and Rapunzel, "We're going to need a fairly large platform, preferably outdoors, to help accommodate large troop movements. Yes, we might need to move artillery through at some point."

xxx

When Elsa reappeared in the study in Namar Sadden's manor, she already heard Anna yelling at Hans.

"What on _earth_ were you thinking? I've had it up to _here_ with your goddamn impulsiveness, Hans! We don't need to waste time cleaning up your messes right now!"

Hans, to his credit, stood straight-backed before the desk, his hands clasped before himself as he accepted her anger.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Hans said, voice even. "It was a foolish gamble, and one I should not have taken. I wasn't going to hurt them –"

"You meant to do exactly _what_ then?" Anna shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. Her cheeks were flushing red, the way they did when she got angry. "Bring them into the kingdom on fear? What happens when they step out of line and I need to discipline Arianna? You've already set the _goddamn floor_ at shooting her!"

It was suddenly clear exactly how different Anna and Hans's approaches had been to Elsa. Anna might have been harsh, yes, but she had cleverly managed to avoid threatening Arianna. All of the danger had been in the form of external threats. Anna was, as a matter of fact, the only one who would be able to _protect_ Corona from those threats.

When had Anna gotten so skilled at this stuff?

Even though Elsa had been the one to suggest that Anna take the role of empress, she constantly found herself confronted with the fact that she'd unconsciously looked down on Anna before now. Anna had always been the little sister, a bit naïve and incompetent, well-meaning but unready for the world. Now, Elsa realized that she was very, very wrong.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Hans repeated.

"Don't be _sorry!_ " Anna said. "Don't do stupid things that you have to be sorry for in the first place! I need you to think before you act, Hans."

She'd burned out now, and she slumped into the chair behind the desk, rubbing her forehead and then her jaw with a hand. She looked at Elsa and Hans for a few moments, her turquoise eyes weary. And sad, still, although her grief was buried a little deeper these days. Elsa felt another deep stab of shame.

"You did well in there," she said softly.

The corner of Anna's lips turned up a little. "Thanks. I'm still getting used to this. That was mostly show in there."

"It didn't feel like show," Elsa said.

Anna nodded, and then waved her hand. "Alright, let's all go to bed. I probably have one reason or another that I'm going to have to be up at six, and I'd like an hour or two of sleep before then."

Elsa and Hans nodded, and started towards the door, excused.

"Oh, and Elsa?" Anna said.

"Hmm?" Elsa replied, stopping on the threshold and glancing over her shoulder.

"Odette left a note for you, in your room. She wants you to read it. Apparently, it's about the amulet."

"Okay, thanks, Anna. Sleep well," she said, before heading back to her chambers.

xxx

She set the candle dish down on the big oaken dresser, glancing over at the desk, where a little cream-colored piece of stationery lay. Elsa walked over and sat down, turning it over in her hands and smiling as she saw Odette's neat handwriting on the back side. The smile quickly faded as she read the words, however.

 _The visions lied to us. The amulet did not show you the truth. I tried to fix it, with magic. Give it another go, when you get the chance._

The End

of Wargate

* * *

The Heroes will return in

Trials of Light and Darkness Volume III:

 _Immortal_

on August 27th, 2018


End file.
